Posted by Tamar on June 28, 2005, at 18:08:38
In reply to Re: My Dream (***possible trigger***) » Tamar, posted by pinkeye on June 28, 2005, at 17:13:27
> Thanks for your interpretation..You are pretty much right on mark with most of it.. Maybe the first part I think I didn't really attribute it to living with my in laws. I think maybe it was a genuine concern of my own mental health.
That makes sense.
> I think you are right about it coming from my father having some signifance on the relation between the two in my mind. What is your theory about csa triggering profound feelings of rejection? I also have that. But I never know how to correct it.
I had the idea when I realised a certain pattern in my life. I noticed that when I really want sex and my partner isn’t in the mood I find it very difficult to handle the rejection. Most of the time it’s not really a problem, but sometimes I feel so awful at being turned down that it’s obviously completely out of proportion to the situation.
When I thought about the feelings I had, I realised that it was the same combination of feelings I had when I was raped. There was physiological arousal mixed with fear and anger and self-loathing and disgust at myself. I was a bit surprised that a casual refusal of sex should lead to such strong feelings. In fact, I always felt so bad I ended up starting an argument, which would then become a massive screaming-match until eventually we made up. And then, having made up, we’d have sex! This happened often enough over the years for me to realise there was something strange going on. I wasn’t deliberately being manipulative, but once I realised what was happening I decided I needed to try to find other ways of responding to that kind of rejection.
I think there’s a profound rejection involved in any kind of sexual assault. In my view, sex is supposed to be about mutual engagement in pleasure, and mutual enjoyment of physical arousal. But in a sexual assault (rape, or csa, or whatever), the victim’s role as a partner is rejected by the abuser. In the case of csa, the victim’s role as daughter, or child, is rejected as well. The victim is dehumanised by the abuser, and becomes an object of the abuser’s perverted view of sexuality and power. It isn’t possible for the victim to assert her own identity, because she’s being rejected as a person. I think that’s part of the reason why in some cases people feel as if they’re watching the assault happen to someone else. It’s very difficult to maintain a sense of who you are when your identity as a person is being rejected by someone who can overpower you.
So I find any rejection, and particularly sexual rejection, a big trigger. Even the fear of rejection by friends carries a sense of losing my identity. And because of my history of sexual assault, that fear is magnified until it becomes out of proportion to the situation.
I don’t think there’s a quick fix for it. Noticing what is happening and naming your feelings is one step. For me there was also something about recognising that my body is not my enemy, and accepting its suffering. Simply being able to recognise my emotional pain was helpful too. I tend to write everything down, and so I wrote pages and pages about my feelings about the past and how they seem to connect with the present. Every now and then I read what I’ve written and I ask myself whether I still feel the same way. When I go back and read my diary from the time I was in therapy, I realise I am feeling much better about it all. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than it used to be.
I hope that’s of some help. I guess you have to figure out what might work for you.
Tamar
poster:Tamar
thread:520625
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050628/msgs/520697.html